I first fell in love with Arlo when I was five, and he helped me up while the instructor yelled at me for dropping the ball. I fell in love with him again when I was eleven, as he helped me over an assault course. This year, it turned into a different kind of love, but by then, Arlo belonged to Lia.
“Arlo!” I rush to him, desperate for a hug, then stop in front of him when he doesn’t slide down off the wall. That’s when I realise that the weapon in his lap is trained on Rehan, standing quietly next to me. I move my body in between them.
“Arlo? What are you doing here?” Now that I’m closer I can see that he looks terrible, red-rimmed eyes in a pale face, foot twitching like a drug addict.
“Rescuing you?” he muses, watching Rehan.
“I don’t need rescuing from Rehan.”
“I was told that you might be brainwashed, but I didn’t think it’d be so deep, so quick.” Arlo is disappointed, but that expression doesn’t cut me as deep as it used to. Perhaps because this version of Arlo isn’t the one I know.
“KHH aren’t real, it’s a set up by Forever, we’ve all been lied to – by everyone, really… And they killed this bunch of people at a farmhouse, and I think others too, we… We can only trust each other, Arlo, the ten of us.”
“Can we trust each other?” He’s still looking at Rehan.
I gently tug the gun on Arlo’s lap, forcing him to look at me. “You tell me. Was it you in that black car last night? Near… The girl in the lilac coat?” Rehan doesn’t know what I’m talking about, but Arlo does. His face twists in pain, his fingers clenching and unclenching on the gun.
“That wasn’t me, I was only there to learn – like now – but then I saw the tiles fall and I thought you might come this way… I know it was awful, but there’s so much that you don’t know – it was necessary. They’re Vol.”
I didn’t believe it, even though I asked the question. Still don’t believe it now, as I shake my head in denial, but my hands believe him, reflexively releasing the gun, and my feet believe him, leading me in stumbling steps back, away from Arlo, as something between us changes irrevocably.
“Nothing is that necessary,” I say, and Rehan is right behind me, tugging my hand. I let him lead me further through the garden, still shielding him with my body as I stare at Arlo. There isn’t time for any more questions. “I have to go. I have to go now. Come with us.” Arlo doesn’t answer me, but he raises the gun slightly, swinging it back and forth with indecision.
“He won’t fire,” I whisper to Rehan as our backs hit the garden gate. I hear a metal clink as Rehan opens the latch behind us.
Arlo proves me right, and wrong, as he points his gun to the sky and fires a summons to Forever.
The gunshot is still roaring in my ears as we sprint out of the garden, and then there’s another one, further away, more sinister in the silence. Lucas? Is Lucas dead? There’s no time to think about it as we pound through an alley. In the dark it’s an obstacle course designed by maniacs and I gasp and curse as we trip and skid again and again over tree roots, ivy, piles of rotting rubbish and puddles. Finally we burst out into a proper street. Rehan spins left. I haul on his jacket to stop him, then sprint right, not checking to see if he’s following me, I know that he is.
“Why this way?” he pants as he catches up, trying to favour his good leg.
“There,” I gasp through dry lips, the breath bitter in my mouth as I point ahead. Then I add another burst of speed to avoid any more questions. I don’t have answers, the world is a blur around me and I have to get away from it, but that dream-like feeling is coming over me again and I know that I’m right.
Rehan follows me around the corner, across a road, to the back of a shop and over a fence, where I grope along a window ledge, not stopping to think, just glad that the window-lock is broken, and my chest is burning, heaving, as I clamber up and through the faulty window into the deserted mini-supermarket.
Rehan is inside a moment after me, sliding the window closed behind him, then we drop to the floor and crawl across it, behind a row of shelves. I lie, cheek pressed into the grubby floor as he settles next to me. We pant in huge, gasping breaths, together.
“Where are we?” he whispers.
“Shop,” I can’t resist replying, as I roll onto my back, putting more space between us, still breathless from our sprint. “Shut up.” I don’t think that we’re in any danger of being found, not unless Forever burst into every building in this part of London, which would be quite the public relations disaster, but I don’t need questions from Rehan right now. I don’t have any answers. I didn’t know this shop was here until I saw it, didn’t know the window would open. It just felt right, or as right as anything can be when you think you might be running for your life.
Luck. We were very lucky.
Rehan’s arm reaches across the floor, the back of his hand touching the back of mine. I don’t respond, but I don’t pull away either, as shards of shattered feelings crumble past me.
I wish I could touch you, he said to me once, as I lay in my Institute bed. And as I listened to his whispers, I imagined us lying next to each other, hands tentatively touching as we shared a smile, perhaps on a beach, or in a field.
It was nothing like this.
We stare at the ceiling, our breathing loud in the silent room as our heart rates return to normal.
But ‘normal’ is finished, for both of us.
Chapter Eleven
My blisters throb in time with my heartbeat. I wonder if Rehan’s ankle is hurting too. Either way, he obeys my instruction to shut up, so I let my mind settle, sifting through facts and possibilities.
Fact: Forever killed a young girl, for being Vol.
Fact: Arlo was in the car that killed the girl. Wasn’t sorry.
Fact: A lot of people died at the farmhouse.
Possible: Forever may have killed a lot of other people.
Fact: Forever wants Rehan dead.
Possible: Forever might want me dead.
Fact: KHH is fake.
Fact: As KHH is fake, my kidnap was a set up by Forever. Just like the data stick said.
Possible: Everything else on the data stick. Including something about – a mother. Something unfurls within me.
“What’s funny?” Rehan whispers, and I realise that I’m smiling at the ceiling.
I sit up, open my mouth, then remember again that his father is very likely dead, and that Rehan just found out he dedicated his life to an organisation that secretly worked for Forever. Rehan hates everything Forever. My smile fades. “What time do you think it is?”
His shoulders move against the floor in what I think is a shrug. “Somewhere around three? It won’t be light ’til sevenish.”
We’ve hardly spoken since my kidnap.
When I first heard his voice in my head, I was scared of him, then I loved him, then after the kidnap I hated him, and now somehow we’re fugitives together – from both Forever and, it seems, KHH. I don’t know what to say, where to start, except… “Can I borrow your tablet?”
“Sure,” he digs it out of his backpack and passes it to me silently.
I roll on to my stomach and read file after file, all meticulously dated. I skim through random extracts from the story of my life, of my friends’ lives. Little things I’d forgotten, like when Luis ate all of the fruit at breakfast for a bet, and had to miss three lessons in a row so he could stay near the toilet. He’s unreliable, according to his file. And stuff I didn’t know, if it’s true. Lia got pregnant? A year ago? Wow. Could that be true? That was when she went psycho, well more than usual. They did start giving us extra injections around then...
I’m amazed they even managed to get a moment alone together – although the staff were more relaxed about that when we were younger. Until around that date, in fact.
Why would Forever and KHH fake this? Rehan lured me out, but it was my decision to take Geraldine’s folder, I could easily have left it there, it makes no sense that data
this complex would be faked just in the hope that I’d steal it. Unless a psychic suggestion or something was planted in me.
My head hurts with possibilities and mistrust. If Forever really are trying to mess with my head to provoke a talent, then it’s working perfectly. If Forever faked this data, then why so much of it? It doesn’t feel fake.
I’ve been putting off reading the earliest file in my folder, and my fingers are cold by the time I click on it. It’s a scan, a copy of some kind of form, handwritten entries scrawled across the boxes. Words jump out at me. Hospital: Royal Free, London. Mother: Anna Tretheway, recruited 6+ months gestation. Father: unknown. Blood samples at birth: unusually high level of Vol mutation indicated. Subject removed at three days and enrolled in program 9b, codename Fern allocated, hospital records amended: cot death. Mother released day three.
Codename Fern.
Vol.
Cot death.
Mother. Recruited at more than six months gestation.
The events of the last thirty hours recede. I don’t care about KHH or Forever, about Rehan’s lies or Arlo’s apparent mental breakdown. Everything in my mind has narrowed down to one question: is this document true?
I’ve always believed that I was created by scientists, patterned to someone else’s design, borne by some random woman who wasn’t genetically related to me. Now, suddenly, I can imagine another version of me – the product not of a laboratory, but of millions of years of men and women choosing each other. All of those helpless babies kept alive, through endless battles against predators, ice age, wars, natural disaster, disease… An unbroken chain of caring and care, leading to… Me.
Family. Parents. Siblings? Belonging. I ache to belong to that chain of people, long for it all with a hunger greater than anything I’ve ever felt.
I might be Vol. Not genetically engineered. Not immortal. My stomach lurches, and my yearning for family vanishes as I realise its terrible price. The future which has always stretched into infinity suddenly contracts to a mere handful of decades. I don’t know what I want to be true. Alone, and the brainchild of murderers, but with an indefinitely extended lifespan? Or Vol, normal lifespan, but… Family?
I have to know who I am.
Rehan is still lying on the floor, playing with his phone, waiting for a call that we both know isn’t going to come. What will he do, now that KHH is over?
I don’t trust him. But out of all the lies and confusion circling round me, at least Rehan admits he lied.
“Rehan.”
“It’s nearly four,” he answers without looking up.
“Rehan.”
“We should go soon, whoever owns this place might be an early riser. Who does own this place?” His stare is accusing.
I shrug. “Where are you going to go?”
He looks away. “Might try to find some of the guys.”
“KHH guys? Despite what Luc – what your father said?”
It’s his turn to shrug.
“Yeah. Before you go… That internet thing you told me about – could someone use it to find someone?” My fingers are clenched around his tablet.
“Maybe, yeah. Who are you looking for?”
My eyes drop to the screen.
“Believe me now, do you?”
“I don’t know.”
He huffs in frustration. “Fern, where are we?”
“I told you, I’ve never been here before –”
“No, I mean you and me. I told you a pack of lies and I thought that I had to, that it was the right thing to do – and you ran off, but then you came to me, not to Forever, or to that guy on the wall – who was that by the way?”
“Arlo.”
“Really?” His eyebrows raise and my cheeks heat as I try to remember what I’ve told Rehan about Arlo.
“Do you trust me or not?” he demands.
“Not.”
“Fair enough. Are you going back to Forever or not?”
“Not.”
“So – where are you going?”
“I’m going to find out if I might have – a mother.” The word feels strange in my mouth. And, whether I’ve got an extended lifespan. “I thought you could maybe help me do that internet thing.” I wave the tablet at him.
He stares at me, then sighs and takes the tablet. “It’s not that simple, but… What was the name?”
“Anna. Tretheway.” It’s difficult to shape my tongue around the words.
He taps at the screen. “There’s like a billion people with that name.”
“A billion!”
He sighs. “Not literally.”
“Let me see.”
He hands the tablet back, and watches as I flick through page after page of names and photos. I don’t know what I’m looking at. Is one of these people my mother? Not her, she’s way too young, and she’s too old, too foreign, she looks much too different to me… Half of these mentions don’t have pictures… “What am I supposed to do with this?”
He shrugs helplessly. “It’s not a directory.”
Fine. I sit and scroll through. This isn’t the way, but I don’t have another. Minutes pass.
Rehan shifts uncomfortably against the wall. “I don’t think that’s going to help.”
I ignore him. My finger is beginning to ache from all the scrolling, but I can’t stop. Any moment now, I might see a photo that looks like me, see something – anything – that’ll help me make sense of my existence.
Rehan stands up. My fingers grip the tablet tighter. I’m not finished. “I met a guy a while ago,” he says. “A Vol. I wanted him to join KHH, but he said no straight off. Part of what I do – did – for KHH is find Vol, talk to them about joining us. I never told Dad about Nevi, he’d just have nagged me to get him on board, and I knew there was no way Nevi was going to change his mind, he’s doing too well on his own. Nevi had this weird talent, he finds lost stuff. He’s got a little telepathy, not much, but ask him to find something and he can. I’ll call him for you. Once it’s daytime.”
“What’ve I lost?”
He gives me a look. “Everything.”
As Rehan turns away and starts sending messages on his phone, I reflect on that. If it’s true that I was some kidnapped Vol baby, then I’ve lost my original family, my original home… If it’s not true, then I’ve still lost my home at the Institute, I can never trust them after all this. Have I lost my friends, too? I think of Katrina and I promise myself that no matter what the truth is, I will see her again. I have to apologise for how I’ve been over the last few months, have to explain about Rehan.
I want to see this Vol guy. Maybe he can tell me which I’ve really lost, my Institute home, or a home with some mysterious mother. Also, I have zero other ideas.
Do I want to be Forever, or Vol? I want to be Fern, but I’m not sure who she is. I wish Katrina was here to talk to – hang on, is she Vol too? Surely not. I pick up the tablet again. And there it is, in Katrina’s first file, three little words. Mother: Juliet Archer. If I’ve lost everything, I’m not the only one.
“Do you have a mother?” I ask Rehan.
He doesn’t look up. “Not anymore.”
Definitely not the only one.
Chapter Twelve
We leave the shop as morning light peers sulkily over the horizon, and people are beginning to trudge to work. We try not to limp, try to look normal, as we put as much distance as we can between us and the ‘safe’ house. Rehan takes my hand, presumably to make us look more like a couple, and I let him. He insists that I wear his coat, pointing out that the hood will help hide my face from cameras. He wears a hoody from his backpack.
My hair itches the back of my neck, but there’s no way I’m taking the hood off. I feel like cameras are watching me from everywhere. Who’s watching the cameras? I don’t know, and I don’t know where we’re going.
Rehan doesn’t know either, as he waits for his contact to reply. But Rehan does have a backpack full of cash, and after a few streets, his eyes light u
p, as a café on the other side of the road turns its sign to open.
“Ever had a bacon sandwich?” he asks.
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re in luck.”
Moments later, steam is fogging up the café window, and amazing smells drift over from the kitchen while I huddle at a plastic table, willing my body to shake off the cold. My stomach rumbles as Rehan returns from the counter, holding two steaming cups.
“I don’t like coffee,” I say quickly.
“Hot chocolate.” He slides it towards me across the table.
He remembered what I like for breakfast. It’s so weird, how well he knows me, when I never really knew him. I reflect on the unfairness of that, as I take a long sip, letting the sweetness slide across my tongue, down my throat. It’s almost too hot. It’s perfect. And it’s so good not to be hungover anymore.
“You owe me your real life story,” I point out.
He laughs.
I kick his foot. “What else are we going to do? Sit here and stare at each other while we wait for your guy to wake up? And you know so much about me. It’s not fair.”
“Um, ok, what do you want to know?” He raises his eyebrows at me as the sandwiches arrive, and all thoughts of conversation are pushed aside for a while as we tear into them. Flavour bursts across my tongue, salty and satisfying, golden butter and hot bacon. I’m never having croissants for breakfast again.
“Oh my god,” I mumble, chomping through the rest of the sandwich.
“You don’t like it?”
“Can I have yours too?”
“You wish!” He takes a bite. “Mmmm.” He shoots me a smug grin.
I swipe the bacon sandwich out of his hands and take a bite.
“Seriously?”
“You kidnapped me, I get your sandwich.”
“Are you going to use that every time you want something?”
“Yep.” I finish his sandwich. “Are you going to order another one?”
He gets up, shaking his head. “I’m going to order another two.”
A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1) Page 9